The Centre has notified three new Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRROs) in Kohima, Agartala and Bhubaneswar, raising the total number of such offices across India to 20, according to a government statement issued on November 2.
The expansion follows Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s directive to establish at least one FRRO in every state capital to manage the increasing number of foreign nationals visiting India for tourism, medical treatment and education.
Five FRROs have been operational since 2025 in Jaipur, Chandigarh, Aizawl, Amravati and Guwahati. The newly notified offices in Kohima and Agartala were previously under the jurisdiction of the Kolkata FRRO, while Bhubaneswar fell under the Hyderabad FRRO.
The government is also considering setting up dedicated FRROs in states that do not yet have them, including Bihar, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Meghalaya.
The 20 offices are located in Ahmedabad, Amravati, Amritsar, Aizawl, Agartala, Bengaluru, Bhubaneswar, Calicut, Chennai, Cochin, Chandigarh, Delhi, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Kohima, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mumbai and Trivandrum.
The expansion aims to facilitate the lawful travel and stay of foreign nationals while strengthening the enforcement of immigration laws and security requirements.
The statement also highlighted the Immigration and Foreigners Act, 2025, which consolidated four earlier laws into a single framework governing the entry, stay, movement and departure of foreign nationals.
Under the Act, the Bureau of Immigration carries out immigration-related functions with assistance from FRROs authorised by the Central government. These offices monitor compliance with immigration laws, handle overstaying and visa violation cases, and coordinate legal action or penalties where required.
